I happened to see in Friday’s paper that there would be one of Improv Everywhere’s MP3 Experiments happening in Raleigh as part of the grand opening of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences’s Nature Research Center (NRC). I pitched it to Kelly, who agreed that the kids would have a blast with this. So, we hopped on our bike and rode downtown to join the fun.
The instructions were on the Improv Everywhere website and boiled down to this:
- Download the “Raleigh MP3 Experiment” MP3 onto your music player.
- Synchronize your watch.
- Wear a red, blue, green, or yellow shirt.
- Be near the designated area before 6 PM.
- At exactly 6 PM, start playing the MP3 and follow the instructions.
We chose to wear just red and green in our family, so that either Kelly or I would be with a kid. I set up everyone’s music player and we arrived at the scene. Kelly and I knew the line to get into the NRC would be long, so we counted on doing at least the flash mob and then whatever we felt like seeing.
It turns out the “mob” was a lot of fun! It was delightful watching people appear out of nowhere and suddenly put their hands in the air, waving them as if they just didn’t care. The music on the MP3 was good and the deep-voice of “Steve” led us through a number of zany group activities: high fiving strangers, hugging inanimate objects, taking naps in the street, slow-motion celebrating, and many more!
My favorites were the activities that caught others unaware! We were told once to blend in with the crowd and at the count of three we were to “freeze.” I thought the looks on the others’ faces were hilarious! That and the group naps were the ones that drew the most attention from the non-participants. Many of the others probably didn’t make any sense to those not tuned into the MP3.
After about 30 minutes of fun, the group waved goodbye to “Steve” and everyone went their separate ways. The streets returned to normal, though our family didn’t stop chattering about it for hours. In fact, during yesterday’s breakfast I turned to say something to the kids and was amused to see both of them with their earbuds in, listening again to the MP3 Experiment!
Early on in the flash mob, I decided to take a picture of the family using my smartphone. Big mistake! My Android phone paused the music player to make its “click” sound, throwing my synchronization off with the rest of the crowd. I was desperately trying to sync up my player with the correct time when I finally realized I could simply move it ahead to the next command, wait for everyone to execute that command, and then start my player again. This worked beautifully and I was within a half-second of the crowd for the remainder of the fun.
My syncing issue also got me thinking that a better way to get people in sync would be to use a low power (Part 15) FM transmitter at the mob scene and have participants wear radios rather than music players. I know the folks at Improv Everywhere can’t be … er, everywhere at once and this would require a trusted lieutenant to be present to set it up. Perhaps a small FM transmitter could be shipped to the flash mob sponsor and details worked out remotely.
Everyone who participated in the MP3 Experiment had a blast! I think we’ll be seeing more of these things in the Raleigh area in the future (and when you do, you’ll likely see me there, too)!